Eight-year-old Harrison was born prematurely at just 23 weeks old. His twin – Raif – sadly died three weeks later. It has been a long and difficult journey for Harrison, having surgery at 10 weeks old to repair a hole in his heart. This caused some damage to the nerve that feeds the vocal cord.
But as he progressed through the usual milestones of childhood, mum Nadia noticed something wasn’t quite right and her son was making very little noise…
“When children are born term you expect noise when they reach the babbling age, but Harrison never really did that,” she said.
“When he did start to speak, his voice was really different. It was more of a whisper and you couldn’t really hear him. By the time Harrison was at school, I noticed that speaking was making him quite tired.”
Four-years later, Harrison was referred to The Great North Children’s Hospital under the care of consultant otolaryngologist, Claire McLarnon: “I met Harrison when he was four or five years old – he had been born very prematurely and, as a result, one side of Harrison’s voice box is paralysed,” she said.
“Normally your vocal cords sit in a ‘V’ shape and they are open when you are breathing. When you are talking, they need to be closed. The air coming up into the vocal cords makes they vibrate, making the sound of your voice.
“When you have one side that doesn’t work or it is paralysed, it tends to sit away so you never really get a proper closure to make this sound.”
In this episode, we follow Harrison as he gets an injection into his vocal cords to strengthen his voice. Claire uses a long injecting needle with a pre-filled syringe of filler to inject into Harrison’s left vocal cord to make it plumper.
“If the injection goes into the wrong place, it can cause damage to the vocal cords so it is important it goes into the right place. The big moment for me is seeing the vocal cords start to plump up so I know I have the needle in the correct place,” said Claire.
Nobody wanted a more positive result from the surgery than Harrison’s mum Nadia.
“The surgery was about giving him that chance to fit in a little bit more. Be heard be confident in himself and helping him into adulthood. Giving him that quality of life.”
It is the moment of truth to see if the surgery has been a success for Harrison and mum Nadia, as Claire arrives to put Harrison’s vocal cords to the test, which sees an improvement.
Following the surgery, Harrison is seeing a speech therapist to learn how to use his voice differently.
